I don’t care if outsiders do full-text indexing on my toots. I am a public figure, and this is my public face.

I do VERY MUCH care if outsiders do full-text indexing on fedi nodes that have their “do not index/data mine” flags set. That’s a violation of consent.

The universodon folks say that fedi folks are creating cool content and should be discoverable. I absolutely agree that fedi folks are creating cool content!

Some folks DO NOT WANT TO BE DISCOVERED. Period. Their reasons are their own and best discussed over a drink. The fedi’s poor discoverability is a feature, not a bug.

The intent behind full text search might be good, but intent is irrelevant. Only impact matters.¹

And I’m saying that as a creator who depends on social media to survive.

Consent, and understanding consent, is important. I’ll be defederating from universodon.com this week, unless they stop this.

¹ No, I’m not quoting my orc stories. My stories are quoting me, who is in turn quoting any number of smart people.

—@mwl